


might as well jump (jump!)

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (VERY pre-slash they're preteens), Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Slash, Stranger Things AU, modern with magic, the mighty nein as the party of stranger things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 15:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14697168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: The crossbow bolt embeds itself into the membrane with a sick squelching noise, and a moment later, Nott hears a growl. A demodog's growl.The entire group falls silent.or: the Stranger Things AU no one asked for, with Nott as Steve Harrington.





	might as well jump (jump!)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Van Halen's "Jump".
> 
> first chapter title is from Van Halen's "Secrets".

Let it be clear—Let it be _abundantly_ clear: Nott had not signed up for this, when she started looking after Caleb so long ago.

_This_ being in a car, with four other teenagers younger than _she_ is, careening towards certain doom.

“Stop the car!” she screams. “ _Stop the car!_ ”

“Relax, Nott, it’s fine, it’s fine,” says Jester, applying another bandage to Nott’s cheek. Nott hisses in pain and terror, and grabs blindly at Jester’s shirt. Oh god. Oh _god_. “She’s driven before.”

“In a _parking lot_ ,” says Molly, horns and purple skin coming into focus as Nott cranes her neck to see him. He looks much better than he did last year, at least. “That doesn’t count.”

“That totally counts and you know it!” snaps Beau, in the driver’s seat.

“Watch out for that post!” yells Fjord, and Beau whips her head back around and swerves so hard Nott nearly flies out of her seat and into the glass window. “Turn right, turn _right_ —”

“Shut up and let me drive, dammit!” screams Beau.

\--

It starts like this:

Nott walks into detention for—well, she’s lost track of how many times she’s ended up in detention, really, but she counts her blessings. This time, at least, her collection hasn’t been taken from her. This time it’s stashed safely away, where no one else can find it.

So, detention aside, she’s feeling pretty good. And she’ll soon not have to deal with detention anyway, she has a _plan_ for that—

“Widogast,” says the teacher in charge of their detention—Martin (Mertin, Morton, _whatever_ ) Cyndrial, “you’re late. And dirty, I see.”

Nott glances up and blinks at the young boy who’s just showed up. And he’s _young_ , maybe fourteen human years to Nott’s ten. Well, in human years, anyway.

The boy Widogast tugs his jacket closer around himself, uncomfortable. “I am sorry,” he says, and his accent is a strong German, his eyes a sky-blue color. He tugs absently at his sleeve, trying to cover his wrist. “I was—waylaid by some classmates, they wanted to ask me some questions.”

Nott can imagine what kind of questions the boy’s classmates asked him. He’s covered in dirt and he’s shaky on his feet, it’s obvious enough at a glance. She looks at Mr. Cyndrial, who can probably tell too.

“And who are these classmates, again?” says Mr. Cyndrial.

Widogast shakes his head, and says, “It isn’t important. What do you want me—or, I should say, _us_ to do?”

“Sit here and think about what you did, while I go see if Grog’s willing to let you kids help him out a little,” says Mr. Cyndrial, standing up. “Or Vanessa. She’ll be glad for the help, I’m sure.” And he waddles out of the room, leaving Nott alone in the room with Widogast.

She looks up at him as he sits down. “You shouldn’t let them push you around like that,” she says. “I know it’s—it’s easier, it’s something I do too, but you’re smarter than they are, if you’re here at, um—”

“Thirteen,” says Widogast, and Nott revises her mental estimate. He’s so _young_. “I am thirteen. You?”

“I’m nine,” says Nott, “but I’m a goblin, so.” She watches Widogast for a moment, sees the brief flinch away from her before he hides it behind a polite mask. “What are you doing here, anyway? In detention, I mean.”

“Oh,” says Widogast. “I, uh. Well. Those classmates I was talking about, the ones who asked me questions?”

“Yes?” says Nott. “You punched them back?”

“Oh, no,” says Widogast. “The reason why they were, ah, _asking_ was because I conned them out of twenty dollars each, before Miss Hydris caught me.” He shrugs. “I didn’t have lunch money,” he adds, though he doesn’t seem to regret it.

“Oh, that’s not that bad,” says Nott, with a small huff. “They caught me ‘cause I was collecting stuff. Sticks and things.”

“I’ve never heard of a student being put in detention for collecting sticks before,” says Widogast, frowning.

“Yeah, they usually don’t,” says Nott, “but they were people’s canes.”

Widogast stares at her.

Then he _laughs_ , a startled fit of laughter where he grips onto the table and tries so hard to get his breath back, and Nott scoots closer so she can steady him, because this kid is very smart, she can see that. Very slick, too, in his own way. She readjusts her plan in her head, to account for Widogast.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“Oh, gods, I’m sorry,” says Widogast, once he’s gotten his breath back. “I didn’t—were you the one who stole Victor’s cane?”

“Yes,” says Nott.

“That was _incredible_ , I didn’t know it was you,” says Widogast. He sticks his hand out. “Caleb. Widogast.” There’s a brief hesitation to his last name, as though he’s not quite used to using it just yet.

“Nott the Brave,” says Nott, taking his hand and shaking it. “Do you feel like getting out of here? There’s an arcade we could be at, right now.”

“Can we stop off at the library first?” says Caleb. “It’s just that my books came in.”

“Oh, sure!” says Nott. “But first—Mr. Cyndrial’s on a smoke break. That gives us about five minutes tops before he comes back. Do you have some way to set off the fire alarms? They took my match collection, you see.”

“You won’t need those,” says Caleb. He snaps his fingers and a small flame flickers around his fingertips.

Nott grins.

\--

Nott clambers out of the car, her head spinning. Fuck, they’re at the mines. They’re at the mines with the demodogs and the undead gnolls and fuck knows what else is there and these _children_ are going to be heading in there and _setting something on fire_ —

She grips on to the car door’s handle. God, she wishes she had her flask. God, she wishes they’d taken her car, this would be so much _easier_ with a little bit of liquor in her. God, she wishes she were braver and less achey.

“You have the rope?” Molly’s saying.

“Of course I have the rope!” says Jester. “I have _lots_ of rope.”

“All right, scarves on, everyone,” Fjord orders, the clear leader of this merry little band of crazy kids. Of which Nott is probably the youngest, but she’s a goblin, she’s older than they are where it counts the most. “Beau, you look ridiculous.”

“I look _great_ ,” Beau declares. “Yasha thinks so!”

“Yasha’s not here right now, she’s keeping watch on Cassandra,” says Molly, mercilessly. He’s so different from the scared, dirty young boy from last year, the one who kept repeating _empty empty empty_ over and over, and even concussed Nott can see how he leans against the car, all confidence and bravado. “Sure we have enough gasoline?”

“No, no, _no_ ,” says Nott, lurching towards Jester to try and catch her. Jester dances away, gasoline sloshing in the can she’s carrying. “No! We _talked_ about this, gnolls are, gnolls and demodogs are _scary_ and _hungry_ , they’ll eat you if you’re not careful! And we’re just five people! We can’t _do anything_ , we can’t go down there and set their hub on _fire_!”

“We’re doing it,” says Beau, brushing past Nott.

“We are _not_ ,” says Nott, trying to snatch the can out of her hands. “I promised Caleb I would keep you all _safe_.”

“Hey!” Beau shrieks, and all but tackles her just to try and get the can back. Nott’s knocked flat on her ass, the can rolling out of her grip, and the world spins for a moment. “Oh, _shit_ —”

“Move, move, _move_ ,” snaps Jester, racing to Nott’s side and dropping to her knees. “Nott, are you okay? I’m sorry about all of this, but Beau was the best choice ‘cause you were unconscious, and I didn’t think—oh, Nott, is everything okay?”

“Everything is _not okay_ ,” says Nott, “we aren’t supposed to be here!”

“Listen, Nott, it’ll be fine, we can watch after each other,” Fjord says. “We’ve dealt with this before, we can handle this.”

“You,” says Nott, pointing in what she is fairly certain is the right Fjord, “almost disappeared _into the Upside Down_ last year because your friend got kidnapped. And _you_ ,” she says, pointing to Molly, “were a catatonic mess _in the woods_. And _you two_ —”

“Okay, we get it, you think we’re a hot mess,” Molly breaks in, leaning over them now. Holy shit. He’s _tall_ now, apparently, taller than he was when Nott had known him as MT. “You are too.”

“I don’t think you’re a hot mess,” says Nott, “I think _you’re all going to die._ ”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” says Fjord.

“ _You kidnapped me,_ ” Nott shrilly shrieks, flapping her hand at Fjord, at Molly, nearly hitting Jester in the face. She scrabbles for the can of gasoline again, cursing as Beau weasels out of her grasp. “Get back in the car! No one is going to be eaten by gnolls or demodogs if I can help it!”

“You can’t,” says Beau. “You’re all concussed and shit.” She turns to Fjord and says, “I told you all she’d freak out. We should leave her in the car, let her recover from that beating she took while we do what we stole a car to do.”

“We can’t!” says Jester. “She might _die_ in there. Haven’t you read all those news about puppies locked in cars?”

“I am _not_ a puppy,” says Nott.

“What she said,” says Molly.

“And no one is locking me into a car!”

“Also what she said.” Molly turns to Fjord now, and says, “Can you go get the rest of the stuff? I know how to solve this.” He points to Beau and says, “You, unpleasant one, fuck off.”

“I liked you better when you didn’t know words,” Beau drawls, but traipses off to help Fjord haul the rest of the stuff out. Nott tries, she really does try, to get to her feet and try to stop them, but Jester grabs hold of her shoulders.

“Hold still!” says Jester, with a huff. “Pike has been teaching me some things.” She rummages around in her bag, pulls out what looks like the sad remnants of a donut, and says, “Here, eat this. It will help.”

“How long has that been in there?” says Nott, a little alarmed.

“Only about a day or so,” says Jester, dismissively, and that’s good enough for Nott. She snatches it from Jester’s grasp and chows down, feeling the tiefling girl’s fingers card briefly through her hair. Where her fingers brush against Nott’s scalp, a warm feeling floods out, expanding until it’s as if Nott’s head is bathed in warmth.

Then the warmth leaves, but now everything is spinning much less than it used to be.

Molly crouches down next to her as Nott is stuffing her face, and says, “You promised Caleb you would look after us, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” says Nott, although her mouth is stuffed so full that her answer comes out more _yeth_.

“And, I mean this, I really do, you have done a _great_ job so far,” says Molly, and she can see the sincerity there, the boy he had been a year ago. “Really! Yes, you got beaten up, but that’s not your fault, the bastard cheated. Now, you also told me that you wanted to make sure Caleb would go on to do great things.”

Nott nods, chewing slower now.

“But to do that,” Molly continues on, “he has to make it through tonight, and to do _that_ , he and Chief Vex need a distraction. And we can provide that distraction.”

“Caleb is a member of the Mighty Nein,” says Jester. “And the Mighty Nein is a crew, and crew members look out for each other. It’s what we’re supposed to do.” She looks Nott in the eye, and Nott sees the hard steel in her gaze. “And we will do what we’re supposed to do.”

“You guys coming or what?” calls Beau.

“So, what do you say?” says Molly. “With you along, we’ll have a better chance of surviving this. You’re much better at traps than any of us are.”

Nott swallows the donut, and lets out a breath.

“Give me my crossbow back,” she says.

\--

It starts like this:

Sometimes Nott escapes to the woods for a time, with Caleb in tow. Neither of them seem to have much to go back home to, anyway, Nott is emancipated from her family and Caleb is—well, when she asks him, he just shakes his head and says something about wherever he’s from being a bad place. Then he changes the subject.

The woods, in comparison, seem pretty nice. Nott’s even found a little abandoned fort out here, belonging to someone named Whitney, once upon a time, and she’s fixed it up good as new to crawl into. She’s even patched up the holes in the walls, so now she and Caleb can hole comfortably up in the fort even if it’s raining.

Caleb likes to read, she’s found. Of course he does, he’s a thirteen-year-old human taking classes at a higher level than most. He’s a very smart boy, and Nott thinks one day he’ll be in Harvard, or Stanford, or some other Ivy League college.

He’s reading now, as the rain falls lightly outside of their fort. Between the magical wards he put up and the patch jobs Nott did beforehand, the inside of the fort is warm and dry, and Nott takes the opportunity to peacefully sort through her collection of shiny new buttons.

She hears the thud, first.

“Did you hear that?” she says, whipping around to Caleb, who’s ensconced in a corner with a book on government conspiracies. “Caleb!”

“What?” says Caleb, looking up. “I’m—sorry, Nott, what did you say?”

“I heard something!” says Nott. “Outside, just—”

Another thud. A faint noise, like someone trying to scream underground. Nott’s ears prick up, trying to track the noise, and she puts a finger to her lips to silence Caleb.

More noises. A choked scream, underground.

_Help._

“Oh, shit,” breathes Caleb, after a moment. “I think—”

His eyes go wide. In a heartbeat, he’s already burst out of the fort and into the rain, and it’s all Nott can do to keep up, shouting after him to wait up for her. The rain pelts against Nott’s head, growing stronger and stronger as she races after Caleb.

She sees him doing a complicated series of gestures, whispering urgently to himself. She sees the bit of blood coming from his nose that he wipes away, quick as possible.

She sees him whip around a tree and stop at a clearing, where the earth is new and freshly-turned.

Oh, and it’s shifting too.

“Quick,” says Caleb, “quick, someone is down there, we need to get them out—”

“I’m on it, I’m on it,” says Nott, and she falls to her knees to help Caleb shift earth and rocks and shit, sharp rocks stinging her palms. “Don’t worry! We’re here to help!”

Then a purple hand bursts from the soil, grasping blindly. Caleb reaches, and braces himself, and _pulls_.

A moment later, the boy’s head breaks through the surface.

It’s a tiefling, that’s for certain. The purple skin might be unusual, but the horns and blood-red eyes are a dead giveaway. His eyes dart around, wide and terrified. They fix on Caleb and Nott and grow even wider.

“The _fuck_ ,” says Nott.

“Help me pull him out,” says Caleb, and Nott does as he asks, grabbing the tiefling’s other hand and pulling him out of the ground. It’s a hard task, the tiefling’s pretty heavy and the ground is pretty dense, but eventually the kid is out of the ground, shaking and shivering in the rain in a hospital gown.

And he’s definitely a kid, not much older than Caleb, maybe about thirteen or so thereabouts. Definitely older than Nott herself, in human years, but at a glance she can’t tell how old he is even in tiefling years, he’s so dirty.

Caleb takes his coat off, and drapes it over the kid’s shoulders. He sits down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, getting wetter and wetter in the rain. “Are you all right?” he asks.

The kid blinks at him.

Nott tugs on the tiefling’s other hand. “Who did this to you?” she asks. “We—We can call the police, have them track those bastards down.”

The kid frowns.

“He’s very talkative,” says Nott.

“What is your name?” says Caleb, as kindly as possible.

The tiefling curls up into a ball, his tail lashing around his legs. “Empty,” he whispers.

“Empty?” says Nott. “Empty is a _terrible_ name.” And she should know. Her name is a pun.

“Empty,” says the tiefling, and he doesn’t seem to be hearing her. Or seeing her. Or seeing anything at all, from the way he’s staring off into the distance.

“Oh, shit,” says Caleb.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” says Nott.

\--

Fjord takes point—

“Oh, no, you don’t!” snaps Nott, grabbing the map out of his hands. She weasels out of his grip before he can get it back, and unrolls the map herself. It’s surprisingly good, for something drawn by a girl possessed by the Upside Down. “If any of you die down here, it’s on _me_.”

“I know the place better than you do,” says Fjord, annoyed. “In fact I’m pretty sure _Molly_ knows the place better than you do, and Molly’s—well, _Molly._ ”

“I will take that as a compliment,” says Molly, graciously.

“I’m better at disarming traps than any of you!” says Nott.

“They’re not that smart,” says Beau.

“Well, demodogs aren’t that smart,” says Jester, “but who says gnolls aren’t?”

“Um, biology books and shit?” says Beau, but her voice wavers in its uncertainty. “Gnolls aren’t smart.”

“This is the Upside Down,” says Jester. “Gnolls could be smart! Gnolls could be _very_ smart, if the shadow monster Cassandra was going on about is really controlling them. He’s super smart, I bet. He could make them lay traps.” She turns to look at Fjord and says, brightly, “Isn’t he?”

“I dunno why you’re asking me,” Fjord drawls, but his eyes dart around like he’s checking for something anyway. What it is, Nott isn’t sure yet, but it’s got something to do with whatever he did to get himself out of the Upside Down. “Cassandra’s shadow monster ain’t—well, sure as hell I’ve never met it before.”

“Point is,” Nott interrupts, “the map is _mine_ , and _I’m_ in point, and all of you little shits better fall in behind me and _stay together_ , because if any of you die on my watch, your parents will _kill me_.”

“I don’t have parents,” says Molly.

“I hate mine,” says Beau.

“Mine haven’t noticed I’ve been away for days,” says Fjord.

Jester, the only one here whose mother seems to care about her at all, turns to stare at them all, a little horrified.

“And Caleb will not be happy,” Nott amends, because clearly the threat of parents is not going to work on these shitheads. “But that won’t happen. _I_ will make sure we all make it out of this alive.”

“You?” says Beau. “You’re fucked up as all hell!”

“She’s not going to be,” says Jester darting forward past almost everyone, putting her hand on Nott’s shoulder. A strange warmth blooms out from under Jester’s palm, suffuses Nott’s entire being in such a way that she startles a little. “There! The Traveler is with you, child—you’re sneakier now.”

“I’m a goblin and I’m _ten_ , I’m older than you lunatics,” mutters Nott, but she winds back her crossbow and looks up ahead. She wishes, again, that she’d brought her flask along.

“Come on,” she says, and steps forward.

\--

It starts like this:

The tiefling is not much older than Caleb is. He’s also pretty mute, and more than once Nott half-thinks he only knows the one word, _empty empty empty_ sometimes slipping out past his lips like a mantra.

The first few days are more than a little difficult. Neither she nor Caleb quite know what to do with the kid, and the kid’s too caught up in whatever’s going on in his own head to notice the two of them too much. They do know one thing:

“We’re not going to the police,” says Nott, firmly. “I don’t _like_ Chief Vex.”

“I won’t argue with that,” says Caleb. “I—don’t do too well, with the authorities.”

And that’s the word on that. The tiefling doesn’t say anything about that, but he seems to agree—the one time a police car came wailing past Nott’s trailer, he flinched and dove for the space under the bed in a panic.

It’s like that, those first few days. Weeks. The whole first month, really, because the tiefling’s pretty quiet most of the time. Sure, he eats, he sleeps, he does his business, but he doesn’t really do much else. Certainly doesn’t _talk_ , doesn’t show much of an inclination to go outside.

Which is good, because she and Caleb don’t know how to explain away a purple tiefling in Caleb’s clothes somehow appearing in town.

“Although you could help us out a little bit, purple boy,” she says once, to the tiefling, in the second month, annoyed after a long day at school and at her part-time job. “Give us a _name_ , besides ‘empty’. Which is a terrible name, by the way.”

The tiefling doesn’t say anything. Nott has grown used to that, and so she turns back to her homework.

Then something small and soft hits her on the back of the head.

She yelps, and whips around to see the tiefling watching her with a look in his eye. It’s a familiar one—it means _you’re not the boss of me._

“What did you do _that_ for?” she snaps.

The tiefling waves a hand at her, then at himself.

“What?”

He points to the cupboard.

“Use your _words_ ,” says Nott, with a huff. “I can’t read your mind, what are you trying to tell me?”

The tiefling rolls his eyes. His hand darts up to his throat, and he makes a few abortive gestures. Nott squints at him, trying to work out the meaning in her head, before she sighs.

“Okay, so you _can’t_ use your words,” she says, knowing already how badly this is going to suck for her. Caleb’s better than she is, when it comes to talking to people, but Caleb is at home right now and she can’t reach him, so. “All right. I’ll ask you yes or no questions—nod for yes, shake for no.”

The tiefling raises his eyebrows, annoyance flashing across his expression. It’s the kind of expression Nott’s seen Caleb wear sometimes, when he thinks someone’s being patronizing towards him.

_I know I am young and inexperienced,_ Caleb had said once, after venting about a particular teacher to her, _and I—I had a difficult start, but I am not stupid._

_I am not stupid._

“Okay, okay,” says Nott, “so you’re not stupid, just—quiet.”

The tiefling nods.

“Can you give me your name?” says Nott.

The tiefling shakes his head.

Nott taps her fingers anxiously against her thigh. “You have a name, right?” she asks.

The tiefling breathes out, and shakes his head. “Empty,” he says, and for a moment Nott’s scared he might be having some kind of meltdown, only—his eyes are fixed on her, not staring off into the distance. So that’s good. Probably.

“You don’t know?” Nott guesses.

The tiefling nods, confirming.

“So,” says Nott, “empty?” She rolls the word around in her head, repeating it over and over until it’s almost meaningless, _emptyemptyempty—_

“MT,” she says, suddenly. “You okay with that? Can Caleb and I call you MT? We can’t call you _weird tiefling boy_ forever.” And she can’t keep him in her apartment forever, but they’ll burn that bridge when they come to it. The kid needs someone to keep an eye on him, especially now that Caleb’s somehow gotten roped into helping out with that A/V club at the middle school.

The tiefling licks his lips, then nods, decisively.

“All right, MT,” says Nott. “What do you want from the cupboard—don’t answer that. Do you want—shit, what do I have in my cupboard?” She scurries into the kitchen, clambers onto the counter as MT drifts in. She yanks the cupboard doors open, curses under her breath when she pulls down the boxes to check: expired Rainbow Brite and Pac-Man cereals are _not_ the kind of thing she should be feeding someone, probably. Maybe?

MT reaches up and grabs the Rainbow Brite.

“Hey!” says Nott. “Hey, you can’t—you can’t eat that!”

MT pauses, then turns to look at her, frowning.

“You’ll get _sick_ if you eat that,” Nott explains, hopping down and grabbing the box out of his hands. “It’s—like when you were first here, right? And you were puking up grave dirt in my bathroom?”

MT’s face scrunches up in disgust, and he sticks his tongue out and makes an audible _bleh_ noise. He shoves the box back into the cupboard from whence it came and slams the doors shut, tail swishing about unhappily.

“I’ve got some Eggos,” ventures Nott.

MT tilts his head at her, questioning.

“Caleb loves them, I keep at least two boxes in the fridge for him,” says Nott, pulling her fridge open. “But I’m sure he won’t miss a couple waffles.”

\--

Jester screams, once.

Nott almost shoots her crossbow bolt at nothing, so fast does she scurry over to Jester when she hears the shrill cry. Fjord is just behind her, cursing as black energy coalesces around his hand, and Molly and Beau follow right after them.

Jester is—

“—fine, actually,” says Jester, wiping off some weird sticky substance from her face, spitting out whatever got into her mouth. She’s lying on the floor, but nothing seems to have been sprained or broken. “But ew, it got into my _mouth_.”

“Oh, good,” says Fjord, and Nott does not miss the note of sheer relief in his voice. The black energy swirling around his hand dissipates, as he and Nott help Jester up to her feet. “It’s not great that some of that thing got into your mouth, but I’m—glad you’re all right.”

Oh, god. Nott has to watch yet _another_ pair of pubescent teenagers falling in love with each other now, apparently.

She smacks Fjord, then Jester, on the shoulders, and says, “Keep moving! We don’t have much time.”

They keep moving, attempting to be as silent as mice. It’s—not working, but that doesn’t seem to matter, the tunnels seem to be deserted for the time being. The monsters under the shadow monster’s thrall have all turned their attention to the lab, Nott’s sure.

Her stomach churns at the thought. If Fjord is right, then Caleb and Chief Vex are there, and as capable as Chief Vex is, as powerful as Caleb is, neither capability nor power will do anyone any good when up against a pack of ravening demodogs.

“They’ll be fine,” says Fjord. “Long as they’re careful, they’ll be fine.”

“Chief Vex has a _bear_ ,” Jester adds. “She and Trinket will keep Caleb safe, I’m sure.”

“Plus Caleb has all that magic shit,” says Beau. “He’s gonna be fine.”

“It isn’t just the magic shit I’m worried about,” says Nott, stepping lightly over a creeping vine. “It’s just—there’s so _many_ of them.”

“Isn’t that why we’re here?” says Molly. “Making sure some of them will leave Caleb and the chief alone?”

“I wasn’t just talking about the demodogs,” says Nott.

“If you’re talking about who else I think you’re talking about,” says Fjord, somewhat haltingly, like he’s not sure how to talk about this, “I was there—when everything went to shit? I was right in the thick of it. Lotta people in that lab are dead now, so—maybe you won’t have to worry about, ah, _that_ as much.”

“If Chief Vex thinks it’s safe to bring Caleb into the lab even with all those goons,” says Jester, “then you don’t have to worry.”

“Yeah, uh, gonna have to say,” says Beau, “historically, with Chief Vex Berkowitz and her ex involved? We get up close and personal with government goons instead.”

“They’re still exes?” says Molly. “I thought they’d have gotten together by now.”

“Maybe it’s like _Haven_ ,” says Jester, her voice a conspiratorial whisper behind Nott. “Where Chief Vex and Mr. de Rolo are _pretending_ they aren’t together yet, because what would the town _think_?”

“That is a very good point,” says Molly.

“Why’re we talking about Chief Vex’s theoretical relationship to Cassie’s brother here?” says Fjord. “This is not the place or time for it.”

Nott rolls her eyes at the bickering kids behind her, and trips over a root. She lets a loud curse out, as her crossbow discharges, a bolt landing right into the pulsating wall of the tunnel. It embeds itself into the membrane with a sick squelching noise, and a moment later, Nott hears a growl.

The entire group falls silent.

Nott very slowly gets to her feet, and with shaking fingers, fumbles in her pockets for another bolt. Her eyes fix on the demodog before them: a snarling, faceless creature crouching down, ready to pounce.

And then Jester says, “Oskar!”

“Wait, what?” says Molly.

“Oh, _Oskar_!” says Jester, rushing forward, nearly knocking Nott over.

“No, Jester, _wait_ —”


End file.
